What you say is not what they report

There have been innumerable instances in which, in their obsession for eyeballs, the news media tends to sensationalize news reports. If you dig below the surface, you’ll realize that in most cases, it’s a deliberate attempt to manipulate news in order to grab the reader’s attention. Take the issue of Modi being the BJP’s PM candidate, a topic of media obsession these days. Pro-Congress or anti-BJP sections of the media find this issue a perfect target to discredit and widen fissures in the BJP. Recently, there were headlines across the media that said, “Narendra Modi fit to be PM, says Sushma Swaraj.” The headline implies that Sushma Swaraj is now backing Modi for PM and has set aside her personal PM ambitions and stopped backing her other colleagues in the party who might be equally interested in the PM job, should the BJP come to power. The truth of the matter is that a reporter simply asked her if Modi is fit to be PM. As a senior party official what would you expect her to say? “Sorry, Modi is totally unfit to be PM. He is an extreme right-wing nut-job. Like many people in this country, I can’t stand the sight of him either!”

What this news report does not tell you is that if she was asked if Advani or Jaitley or any other visible person in the BJP was fit to be the PM, she would most certainly have said the same thing. In the media’s obsession for catchy headlines, there is very little due diligence or responsible, editorial review that seems to be going into such reports.

Picture a scenario where you interview someone living in an affluent south Mumbai neighborhood. You ask this person, “Could your house be burgled?” The obvious answer most people will give you in response to such a question is, “Yes, it’s possible.” Imagine if you twisted this interview for a headline that reads, “South Mumbai no longer safe from burglary, says long-time resident.” This headline is bound to grab reader attention, but it gives the completely wrong impression that a once plush neighborhood is now on the decline with rampant burglaries.

After this headline involving Ms. Swaraj, I heard more than a handful of individuals comment in passing that Sushma Swaraj is now backing Modi for PM! In other words, the media is quick to indulge in false propaganda and most readers don’t spend the time to read carefully, process and question the information. Is the onus on the media to indulge in responsible reporting? Yes, absolutely! In a developing country like India with a majority of young people, the media has a particular responsibility to educate and provide thought leadership, and honest and accurate reporting is a big part of that.

Unfortunately, even senior journalists indulge in the same kind of gimmicks. Take the recent example of one interview with Anna Hazare in his village by a senior journalist. After a few rounds of chit chat with Anna, it was evident that the journalist was desperately in need of a headline. So he started to ask Anna about his colleagues on former Team Anna. Still fishing for a headline, the journalist asks Anna, putting words into his mouth, “You think Kejriwal is hungry for power.” Anna responded innocently as many would have in his situation, “Ho saktha ha,” (akin to my south Mumbai resident). The headlines as you can imagine the next day was splashed, “Kejriwal hungry for power, says Anna.”

In another case, when Kejriwal said in an interview with another senior journalist, “Every citizen is above Parliament,” it was mischievously twisted into a headline that read, “Anna above Parliament, say Kejriwal.” Ironically, when the same Kejriwal says in a public forum, with the who’s who of Delhi in attendance at the Aaj Tak meet, that media editors are taking their directives from powerful industrial houses to blackout his party from the news, there is no report mentioning this. There is no investigation by the media if there is truth in this allegation.

There are no shortage of examples like the few stated here. There have been repeated calls for media regulation from the likes of Justice Katju. But there appears to be a host of related issues that also need to be looked into beyond just media regulation. For example, many top journalists are routinely nominated to the Rajya Sabha by political parties. So if you are a top journalist and not yet a RS member, you are possibly currying favors to land in Parliament. If you are already there, then your loyalties are suspect. Then there are postings made by the government in power to various government bodies where senior journalists are often nominated. When the government in power can nominate a journalist to a government body, isn’t there a conflict of interest? The Radia tapes showed us that media at the highest levels is often in cahoots with politicians and industrial houses. Recent exposes have also shown the nexus across political parties (refer to Law#2 in Top 10 unwritten laws of Indian politics) when it comes to corruption. The Jindal reverse sting operation appears to be a case of an otherwise cozy relationship at the highest levels of media and politics gone awry. While media regulation (self or otherwise) can curtail irresponsible, manipulative reporting, the associated nexus that plagues the media needs to be simultaneously dismantled – one more critical addition to the aspects of our democracy that is in dire need of systemic changes.

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DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Pran Kurup is an entrepreuner and former President of the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association (SIPA). He has published three technical books and has a broad range of interests incluing Current Events, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Non-profit, and Politics, among other topics.

Pran Kurup is an entrepreuner and former President of the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association (SIPA). He has published three technical books and. . .